Past research had concluded that an invisibility cloak wasn't possible. That may no longer be the case.
Andrea Alù, Einstein professor of physics at City University of New York, and one of the researchers who in 2016 said an invisibility cloak was theoretically impossible, declined to comment on Vollebak’s claims because it lacked a supporting scientific peer-reviewed paper, making it hard to understand what the scientific progress was.
However, Pelaez-Fernandez is skeptical of how possible it is for what’s currently being displayed to turn into an invisibility cloak in the future. The appearance of infrared and visible radiation are very different things, she says.
The cloak would also struggle with any backlighting. “If you were to stand in front of a light source, you would still look like a shadow,” she says. “They're trying to sell it as a plausible future invisibility cloak when they already have a really cool device: an invisibility cloak for thermal cameras.”
Despite the bold claims linking the jacket to invisibility cloaks, Tidball and Vollebak are up-front about the fact that this is little more than a proof of concept. Unlike some other innovations the clothing company has developed, the thermal camouflage jacket is not yet for sale—and may not be for some considerable time. Wearers of the jacket are, for the time being, umbilically connected to a computer with wires.
Naturally, having thought that developing a working thermal invisibility cloak would take three months, only for it to take 12 times that, Tidball is more realistic about estimations of when the clunky-looking prototype jacket can become something fully wearable for all. “Ultimately, you’re still a good five or 10 years away from actual invisibility,” he says, and this is before even figuring out how to miniaturize it in a way that would enable it to be sold on the high street.
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